Sprout Magazine

How To Survive In FTL: Kestrel

Faster Than Light, also known as FTL, came out in 2012. It puts the player in control of a single spaceship. The story pits the player as a member of the Federation trying to escape from the rebel fleets. After journeying through multiple systems, while staying ahead of the pursuing rebel fleets, you make a stand at the Federation base.

The story doesn’t particularly make sense, but the game shouldn’t be played for the story. It is a lot of fun to find scrap, weapons, etc. and use them to upgrade your ship into a truly formidable warship. While there is only a single story mode, and each playthrough is quick, taking about 30 minutes, everything is random, so there is a lot of replayability.

The ship that you start with is the Kestrel, which is a great ship. It starts with a burst laser II, which is a great weapon. Early on, you’re going to want to aim your missile at the enemy shields and the burst laser at the enemy weapons. This will clear any of the early enemies pretty easily. That will not be a match for the final boss of course though. Getting crew for the Kestrel is important early on, since you only start with three humans. This makes it hard to fend off boarding attacks. The Kestrel is an offensive ship though, which means that as soon as you can, you should upgrade your weapons. Stronger missiles are nice. I’ve found that the most effective strategy with the Kestrel though is to get more burst lasers and get a strong beam weapon. By making the beam fire right after your lasers hit the enemy shields, you can cause massive damage. That is how I usually take down the boss.

Drone wise, the Kestrel doesn’t start with the system for them, but getting it is almost always a good idea. The system repair, defense, and hull repair drones are good investments. Cloaking is another system that the Kestrel doesn’t start with. It is very expensive to purchase, but is incredibly useful. If you do purchase it, make sure to fully upgrade and power it. Shields are very important as well, but remember that you don’t have enough power to fully upgrade everything. Pick and choose based off of your strategy if you want to win. If your weapons are destroying everything with ease, then maybe put more energy into shields. If your weapons aren’t strong enough, then upgrade them. If you have cloaking, then you won’t need as much shield energy.

The Kestrel is a very balanced ship, and is therefore easy to play. There is a reason why it is the starting vessel, after all.